Asus a couple of weeks ago Asus slipped its Disk Unlocker utility under our radar, a piece of software designed to overcome the so-called 2.2TB barrier that, in a nutshell, prevents legacy operating systems from accessing the full storage capacity of hard drives larger than 2048GB.
The way Asus explains it, Disk Unlocker “taps into hidden storage space beyond the nominal 2048GB range, helping you use large hard drives to their maximum potential.” The way things currently stand, in order to fully use a storage drive larger than 2.2TB, you need an OS that supports the GUID Partition Table (GPT), which is only supported in 64-bit versions of Windows. To boot from that same drive, things get an order of magnitude more complicated, requiring an UEFI BIOS; 64-bit version of Windows 7, Vista, or Server 2008; non-scented candles; and finely ground albino bat lips.
So where does Disk Unlocker fit into all this? Provided you’re rocking an Asus motherboard, the Disk Unlocker utility essentially converts a physical HDD larger than 2048GB into a virtual drive, which can then be recognized in its entirety no matter which version of Windows you’re running. And while Asus is a bit vague on this point, the manual appears to state that you can F6 the appropriate drivers during Windows XP installation so that you can boot from the drive as well.
We haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, but when we do, you can be sure we’ll report back the results.
Image Credit: Asus
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Asus Disk Unlocker Utility Breaks Down 2.2TB HDD Barrier (Sort Of)
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